They took advantage of improved communications technology to sell a plethora of affordable goods to consumers across the United States, put local merchants out of business, and opened scores of enormous distribution centers. Sound familiar? It's not who you think, unless you’re thinking of Sears and Roebuck. We've got their old catalogs, which today serve as a nostalgic time capsule and a beautifully illustrated guide to the economic history of the average American.

Watch history unfold through some rare and collectible maps. Join Ken as he guides us on a journey through Boston's past, from George Washington's arrival on Washington Street to real estate sales in a trendy new neighborhood called the Back Bay. Find yourself in this week's Brattlecast.

Ken talks handwritten journals and letters: what makes them valuable and how his team at the shop goes about researching them. We'll delve into a Caribbean voyage with a magical conclusion and a utopian community in bucolic West Roxbury, with a side trip to a certain famously far out festival of the late 1960's. Learn whether your journal might also have the 'write' stuff on this week's #brattlecast, an episode to write home about!

What goes through Ken's mind while he's doing his favorite thing (buying books)? This episode is all about the Brattle's buying process, from the first phone call to the packing and hauling. Learn why it's not very helpful to describe your collection as 'both fiction and nonfiction' and why flights of stairs are the bookseller's natural enemy. Also, for any Boston accent aficionados who may be listening, we have a delightful discussion of parking.

He's received a postcard from the South Pole, gotten into an absurd exchange with a member of Monty Python, and worked in close quarters with live grenades: it's all just another day on the job for Kenneth Gloss, proprietor of the Brattle Bookshop! On this explosive brattlecast Ken talks about the wonderful weirdos and strange situations that have enlivened his years in the bookselling business.

On this day in 1942 tragedy came to Boston in the form of the deadliest nightclub fire in history. The Cocoanut Grove's intentional lack of exits and extremely flammable Polynesian decor doomed 492 people, injured hundreds more, and changed the way we think about doors forever. Ken kindles our interest with a fascinating and scary personal scrap book of the fire and its aftermath in this blazing hot episode of #brattlecast.

The story of our outdoor sale lot's evolution from a few small stands in front of the shop to one of the most photographed places in Boston. Learn all about the perks and pitfalls of selling books outside, all year round, in notoriously variable weather.

In this episode Ken shows off a bound volume of Harper's Weekly from 1863, and flipping through it with him is like peering into a fascinating time capsule from the Civil War era. Harper's employed some of the best journalists, artists, and photographers of the time, and in its pages eye-witness battlefield reportage and sentimental woodcut illustrations of homesick soldiers share space with advertisements for dubious health tonics and prosthetic limbs.

Today we've got an 1800's sailing log and a Civil War journal, both containing surprising passages which take them from standard to spectacular. Also, some tips on what to do with any handwritten material you'd like to get appraised. An episode to write home about!

Ken discusses a copy of The Big Book, inscribed by Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson. It's one of the most influential books of the 20th Century, and the unfortunate social stigma associated with it makes certain editions particularly rare. Learn all about it, one Brattlecast at a time.